Tag: Bellator 58

The UFC may be the brand name of MMA, but it doesn’t have exclusive rights to action packed bouts. While the UFC 139 pay-per-view was just getting warmed up, the evening’s “other” war and ‘fight of the year’ candidate was breaking out on MTV 2. If you didn’t catch it, I suggest you watch it in full up above.

Season 4 Lightweight Tournament winner Michael Chandler was all over Eddie Alvarez from the opening bell, driving forward and swinging for the fences. Within the first fifteen seconds he had dropped the champion twice and was only moments away from snatching the belt, but once again Alvarez proved difficult to put away. Chandler’s pressure wilted halfway through the second frame, allowing Alvarez to steal the round with a series of effective combinations. By round three Chandler’s fatigue was visible and the champ pounced, battering him across the cage. Though tired and hurt, Chandler continued to look for the big shot that would take Alvarez out. Answering the bell in the fourth, Chandler looked renewed and eager to throw. His hands found their mark, wobbling Alvarez before a big right hand dropped him. Chandler followed him down and mounted him, locking in the rear naked choke as Alvarez turned his back.

(The Bellator catchweight champ will be looking to extend his unbeaten streak to 25 fights with a win over Prangley.)

Bellator Fighting Championships announced today that its current middleweight champion, Hector Lombard (32-1-1, 1 NC) will square off with UFC and Strikeforce vet Trevor Prangley (23-8-1) in a non-title catchweight affair at Bellator 58 on November 19 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fl.

The bout, which will be contested at 195 lbs for unknown reasons will be the second non-title bout in a row for Lombard, who won the Bellator strap in June 2009 and has only defended it once since, when he defeated Alexander Shlemenko at Bellator 34 last October.

According to Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, his promotion has been involved in talks with Sobral’s camp to sign the 36-9 submission specialist for a non-title bout with Lombard (30-2-1, 1 NC) at Bellator 58 on November 19, but nothing is set in stone. Strangely, the promoter still announced that the bout was in the works, which could simply be a tactic to pressure Babalu, who has only fought twice in the past two years, into signing on the dotted line.

“I’ve been a big ‘Babalu’ fan for a lot of years,” Rebney told MMAJunkie. “They weren’t really on our radar, but then they reached out to us and opened the door and asked for a few things. We agreed to all of them. … But now we’re siting back and waiting. We haven’t heard anything back from them in three or four days.”